2026-03-02 CSD99 School Board Meeting

001All right, it's 6:30 p.m. Uh, Julie, would you mind calling the role, please? >> Certainly. Katie Courtourtney, >> here. >> Ken Dawson, >> here. >> Chris Espinosa, >> here. >> April Fein, >> here. >> Don Runner, >> here. >> Michael Riskey, >> here. >> Ryan Enright, >> here. >> Romina Paper Vera Gonzalez >> here. >> Thank you very much. >> I having a quorum. would stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Right. I'll turn it over to you, Hank, for student perspectives. >> All right, I'll invite our one up to the side. It's appropriately a Arwin height if this ever happened. All right.

002Now, I don't know how to move it up for other people. >> Just leave it. It'll be fine. >> Okay. Can you hear me? >> Yeah. >> Um, so I love when it's our turn to do student perspectives. I know Dr. Dement feels the same way. Um, we are so lucky that we have thousands of amazing students to choose from. Um, and this month we, my activities director, Jennifer Martinez, and I looked at each other and we have to celebrate our two emerging science clubs that exist in our building right now. Both clubs have become immensely popular and impactful very quickly. So, we have two students here from each of the two groups who are going to share the amazing work they're doing. So I'm going to start by introducing science teacher Kelsey Gibney and

003then she will introduce our students representing SUI next and then she'll also introduce our students rep representing the next club. >> Hello, my name is Kelsey Gibney. I'm a science teacher at South and I'm also the um sponsor for the SW Next club. That's an emerging um science club this year. So we have stu two students from SW Next that are really excited to share with you what they've been doing. And then following them, we have two students from our um new science health club that are gonna share with you what they've been up to this year. So, I'm going to turn it over to our students. >> Hi, my name is Ellie Hammond and I'm a junior. >> And hi, I'm Emma Herman. I'm also a junior. >> Uh and we are some executive

004members of uh the SW Next Club here at DGS. >> Yes. Um so, SW Next stands for Society of Women Engineers and Next as in next generation. So we are a club uh focused on promoting like women in STEM careers, STEM interests. Um and also we are inclusive to everyone. I mean yes it's women in the name but we are welcome like we we have everyone. We have guys everyone is welcome. Please stop laughing at me. Sorry. when you want me to advance, you can just tell me. >> We um in Sweden, we often do um we explore different careers every uh we meet every other Tuesday. Uh so we meet twice a month and so what we do is we do like themed days. So, we do stuff like um next our next meeting

005um there's 10 of us on leadership and so next meeting we're planning to do a marine biology type theme and we're going to do a bunch of activities surrounding that and we also create just like a safe space to explore anything you could want to do in the future. >> Yeah, we've had um architecture days where we >> we built Legos, we had like a shake table so like you could see which one was the most sturdy and we had a guest speaker come in. We did uh if you want to go to the next slide, we have a picture of that. Um so we've had some guest speakers. We've had um an architect by the name of Joyce Hanlin. Uh she came in and talked and she has been work she's worked on things

006like the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and things like that. Um we've also had uh Dr. Elizabeth Kak, if I'm I don't know if I'm saying that right, who's an associate professor and also a director of dental hygiene at uh Lewis University. And so it's super cool to have people like that come in and talk to us about all that stuff. Um, also one of the like key things we've done specifically this year is um, we did this super cool thing called the Halloween machine as you can see up there. Um, it's a giant Rube Goldberg machine that we put in the back of a pickup truck. Um, it was made entirely by club members, decorated entirely by club members, and the whole thing was run and designed by club members. And so at the top

007we had a string that kids would pull and it would release a golf ball which would go down either track and at the end it would hit that bucket and it would open and there was lights and people and they could pick out a candy. And so yeah, that was one of them. And we've done a bunch of other super cool things. >> Yeah. Like what we're doing right now, we have uh a period product drive in all of the science classrooms. That's on the next slide. >> Next slide. >> Yeah. So, we have these boxes um where people can just drop off different period products and they get distributed across Chicago. We're donating specifically to the Period Collective in downtown Chicago, which is Chicago based and run um women's donation spot where you collect

008things like pads, tampons, stuff like that. And they um like give those out to local women's shelters and stuff like that. We're also um participating in the scare sustainability design challenge in April of this year. And so that entails like each you get to create a team of up to four people and your team works on um you get to design your own um I'm trying to think the word design your own like sustainable building and you have to plan like where you would put it in the DuPage County where you would um what you would do with it. How would it be a sustainable thing? how you like manage storm water, all that type of stuff. Yeah. And so our future plans are we're planning to do more like STEM challenges and competitions. And

009Emma's gonna say the next one. >> Uh we're also going to continue having more uh speakers come in. And we're also going to have an outreach with like middle school students and like elementary students because we want to build a strong foundation of women in STEM. >> Do we have any questions? How many uh kids are participating in your club at this point? >> Oh gosh. Um >> there's about 40 registered usually get maybe 15 at each meeting just because a lot of these kids happen to be kids that are involved in lots of things. >> Sure. >> And this is your inaugural year. Is that right? >> Yes. >> And whose idea was this to form the club? >> So we have five um presidents. We have five different presidents. We have a lot

010of people in leadership. >> You guys like a bank. We have 10 people in leadership, but there are five founders who um all got together and made this plan around doing the Sweenex thing and but also all 10 people in leadership did a lot of like crowdfunding because it took a lot of steps to actually get to this point of being able to be a real club. So, everyone got out and we had these like signup sheets where we took everybody who think they could want to do it and they did it and we had all this stuff to make sure it happened and it took everybody to do that. What are you what are you guys planning on studying in in secondary education? >> Um I'm planning to go to college for um child

011development to become a childlife specialist who works in children's hospitals. >> I'm planning on majoring in physics. >> Okay, >> that's wonderful. >> Yeah. Do you have any more questions? >> Thank you so much. Good evening everyone. Um, my name is Donna Garcia de la Cruz and I am HSAF president. My name is Stephanie Hernandez PLA and I am the HSAFP vice president >> and our word HSFP is really hard for a lot of people to pronounce. Um, but it has I think it has great meaning because it stands for the high school alliance of future physicians >> and like that is what we're dedicated for to cultivate that network for those students that are passionate about medicine and are planning to pursue medicine in the future. And we also provide that early exposure to

012like all the diverse medical careers and specialties in the medical field as well as the different pathways they can take. And we through the activities we do, we prepare students to think, collaborate and problem solve just like healthcare professionals would do. Okay. So we've been doing a lot of things so far. Uh we've brought in a good number of guest speakers from different medical fields. We've had people from nursing. We've had physical therapists. Uh we had um pharmacists come in. Well, not really. Uh virtually. >> That's still awesome. >> And we've had a lot of different activities from again different medical fields. We've also done we uh volunteer work. We've made cards for um >> it was a good Samaritan Hospital physicians. >> Yeah. Good Samaritan Hospital. Uh, and we're we're always trying to offer

013students opportunities for webinar and other volunteering opportunities outside of school and just different things that could open them up to different medical fields. And looking ahead, we are looking forward to introducing our new leadership team, which we are going to finalize this month, choosing our officers for next year since all the board is going to be um seniors. So, we're going to be graduating this year. And we're also looking forward to possibly doing a dance marathon fundraiser at a lower scale. Since as being an emerging club, things have been really like fast. And we also want to go into more hands-on experience with specimens for the students in our club just so they can get gain that experience with actual living things. And we also are looking forward to our virtual reality emergency department escape

014room. I think that's going to be really fun. And similar to um Swex, every month is designated to a specific career. Um this month is going to be radiology. We're going to have a radiologist come in to speak to um the students and we are going to be doing kind of like a trivia with it. A game show actually. Game show. >> Yeah. And for our next steps, we hope that our um leadership team that is going to take over is able to participate in schoolwide dance marathon, which we have talked with our activities director. She said it would be better for next year. we can do it more at like the scale that it's usually done since it's a big event usually and fully launching our HSAFP exposure since um by the end of

015first semester we were able to um get a co-chapter with KOSA but we weren't able to fully be active in it since it was really late in the year and also So, we want to have more hands-on experience and interactive activities for students to gain those skills that are going to be essential for them not only in college and labs but also in their future careers. And we also want to expand those connections with those medical professionals just so when students get out there in college and in their careers, they have those connections for to gain those I'm sorry to for to gain into the field with a secure foundation in knowledge with people they can be comfortable with speaking to and gain more opportunities that way. >> All right, any questions for our students?

016>> What areas of medicine are the two of you interested in pursuing in college and beyond? Um, I'm very interested in cardiology >> and Stephanie is actually not planning on going into medicine. >> Okay, >> that's all right. >> Yeah, but um she has been really active with this club and helping us make this possible. >> How many members uh are in your club? >> So on Google Classroom, we have over 100, but On average, every meeting we have like about 20 consistent members. >> That's great. >> Great job. >> One thing I just wanted to share um in closing um with emerging clubs, they come from student driven interests. So the students that you see tonight um like they come forward to us and they say we are interested in starting this and then

017they actually recruit our adult sponsors um like Miss Gibney and Miss Cal who's not here tonight. But just like big big credit to the student leadership um that you see from these four and then just to our teachers who when students say I want to do this and they're like okay let's go do it together. Um we're just really really proud as a DJS community. So, thank you everybody for >> All right, student board members. Who's up first this morning? >> I'll be going first. >> All right, good evening everyone. Um, I'm really happy to see so many people here, some familiar faces. Um, I wanted to start off by saying that I'm really glad that we were able to highlight those emerging clubs. like u Miss Lip said, it's very important that students feel

018heard and that their um passions and interests that they feel comfortable to pursue those and that we provide those resources for them. Um so for the report for the student body um there continues to be the very strong push and the messaging that every day matters. Um we continue to remind students that it's not only important to be in class every day but also being engaged um with your teachers asking questions um just being present. Um we have I think overall seen that doing that truly leads students to be successful and those small choices do truly make a difference with the phone scanning. Everything um has been going well. It's routine. There's no problems. Um it I will say it's mostly again just routine. Um nothing has truly been a glaring problem. Uh we continue

019to see effects of that. Um again with students being more engaged in class u more engaged with each other and overall that um skill of hold holding yourself accountable. Uh I think you can see truly throughout every area. You can see it when students are doing their homework during lunch instead of just being on their phone. You can see it again with the action of just going up there and scanning in. Um and overall those habits will build off and truly help students not only in school but also outside of school as well. Um with activities we have the very exciting uh Polar Plunge coming up. So, this is in support of the Special Olympics of Illinois and it's just a great way to raise money for an incredible cause and it's a good way

020for students to get involved. Um, we had a lot of different activities participating at the state level. We had our speech team gymnastics, bowling, we had the boys swim and dive. Um so overall just those um winter activities wrapping up and we've seen uh this week, next week our spring activities um starting. There's been um a lot of child starting such as soccer, um softball, baseball, those are all starting again and everyone's very excited. Uh we also have a choir concert this week uh and other activities such as the jazz cafe next week. And overall, like I said, students are very enga engaged and motivated as we head into the final stretch of the year. And then with resources, um the college and career center continues to provide students with opportunities to explore not only

021careers, but also provide them with help such as financial aid, um and help overall with colleges. Um they are holding a um week where they bring in uh career speakers. Um they're also having things such as workshops and uh military day and overall um again helping students with the just giving them the resources they need and the support they needed to truly be successful in um their career not only in high school but after as well. Thank you. >> Thanks for question now that we're in the second semester. you know, students have had a chance to really get into the flow of the school year. How effective has the cell phone policy been in terms of keeping students engaged in the classroom? >> Yeah, I think it has definitely helped. Um, I've noticed a difference.

022Um, I think that students are aware of just how much it truly impact like the true impact that it has to like again just put the distraction away even if it's just in your backpack. Um, they understand that that is what's best for their learning and again what those like small decisions are what makes them successful. Um, and I think that that knowledge as well as just having teachers having the materials to kind of like enforce those rules has truly I personally think has truly helped um, keep students motivated and overall throughout the whole year, focus on those goals. >> Cool. Great. Great. >> Well, good evening everyone. As always, Roina always covers everything and leaves me with so much to talk about. Um but other than that, this week has been super fun and

023these this shows as such a pivotal week. Um and even next week are such pivotal weeks in the school years um for all students whether that be grades, activities and spring sports are starting. So Romina said that spring sports are starting like softball, soccer, baseball, and volleyball. Um and there's a lot of excitement in the building. Triyouts are happening. I know we have volleyball triyouts next week. Um we had baseball and soccer triyouts this morning. So everyone's super excited about that. This Thursday we're taking 50 students to the DECA state competition. Um which is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Super exciting. This is the biggest year yet where we've been able to take 50 different students. I mean, and they're ranging not just they're not just seniors and juniors, they're freshman, sophomores um in all four

024grades. And that's something really cool to see. Um, going back a little bit, I love seeing that we're representing some of the newer clubs and seeing that our administration and principles are investing in those student ideas and hearing out what students want to learn from and the things that they want to be involved in. I think it's so cool that they have the opportunity to start their own clubs and find their own um sponsor. Other than that, going back to the phone policy, um, phones, we have not been using the pouches. I know me and Roina have definitely talked about um what it's like in that implementation in the classroom and from my perspective mostly the phones have stayed away and that self-regulation piece is the most important part. Um for me the phones kind

025of stay in the backpack it's kind of on the desk to the side but people like are not on it like this and if they are there's a verbal warning there's a warning from the teacher and then there's a follow through with uh whatever um consequence that they find is applicable for the situation. But the phone policy I think is working and we've talked about this before. We think it's important that students have that self-regulation and that's honestly what I'm seeing. Um same thing with scanning in. Scanning in is it's just like routine. Um and I think what's interesting to point out is we've had live security um come through the building. So if somebody forgets to scan in, security's um doing a sweep through the building and see who's not at their classes and

026stuff just to make sure that everyone's um being present and being engaged and fully present where their classes are. So for instance, I mean I in three of my classes I think it was last week a few classes somebody forgot to get in security just double checked that they were there and that was that. Um, other than that, we're scholarship season's in full swing. College admissions, people are still people kind of got their decisions back, but the late and regular decisions are coming out. So, there's a lot of excitement about that. Um, the everyday branding and engagement um and being engaged and and fully present when you're in class has continued to um stick out. This week is spirit week. Dr. They, I don't know where your matching set is. Um, >> I don't know.

027>> I got a suit on. >> It's okay. It's me. Anyways, um other than that, uh working on keeping the comments clean has been a huge goal too with our student advisory board. Um we meet once a month and I'm excited to meet with them too to talk about some other things that are going around uh going on around the building. But one problem that came up was keeping our comments clean. Um and we've been doing that and our custodian rewards one table um per lunch period and whatever the cleanest table is, they get a prize. And I think that's such a cool way to reward not only um the people that are being responsible and throwing away their garbage, but it just teaches students that they need to take care of their space and

028appreciate the things that they have. So, spring break's coming up. Um everyone's super excited for that. And other than that, please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. >> What kind of prizes? I think it's a ticket, right? >> Ticket to student activities and it's a big candy bar. >> Very nice. All I know is I was there a few weeks ago when they announced the the table that won and it was as big as seeing like who won American Idol like >> Oh, and the t-shirt cannon. Can't forget about the t-shirt cannon. >> Very fun. >> So, it's such a great idea to reward that behavior. >> Yeah. >> So, I like that we're hearing that you both feel at school at the campuses that the school the cell phones we're

029not seeing them as much. What about AirPods? >> The AirPods definitely a factor in what I've been seeing. Um, and I think there's an expectation when instructional time's happening, the AirPods should be away, but when someone's doing independent work or reading or kind of doing things like that, I think um there's been this kind of normalization that the AirPods always going to be there. Um, me personally, I'm not much of an AirPod person. >> Is that a normalization? I mean >> I mean I I teach at a middle school so as soon as they walk in like I'm checking ears as they walk by. So I'm just wondering like do we are we seeing a lot of white ears? >> Yeah. Yes. And it's that's just I feel like that's just a normal thing. >>

030It's at the discretion of the classroom teacher, right? So if the classroom teacher asked for them to go away and a student didn't comply, that would be a violation of our rules. >> And they do. No, I mean I think it's I think it's something that we should definitely be aware of. We are so focused on the cell phone. >> The cell phone we know is connected too in in many situations. >> Yeah. If they're disrupting learning, the AirPods or a watch or any electronic device would be covered by our policy. >> Yeah. And >> so you notice in in the classrooms when they're in >> Yeah. These are coming out. >> They're definitely not allowed during in pivotal moments in the classroom, especially during instruction time whether you're working with people. Romina, have you

031seen a little bit of that? Um, I've seen it again, but as soon as it's like a problem or the teacher notices or it's just not the appropriate time for those things, it's immediately like a quick, "Hey, can you take out your AirPod?" And it goes away immediately. There's no retaliation. There's no time. It's like immediately goes away. >> Yeah. And I I think it's important to recognize that that's just something that people like to do and feel comfortable with. And there's a time and place for it, right? Um, and when our my teacher's up there presenting or teaching a lesson, OB, it should not obviously not be in. But if if you're sitting in class and it's it's there and you just put your AirPods in because you're working on homework, um, I think

032most teachers are kind of okay with that. >> Yeah. >> One question for both of you, and it's likely something you won't be able to answer tonight, but to think about for a while. Um, as you've been on this side of the board for the past couple of months and we're getting closer to the end of the year, um, if each of you could think about one policy that you would try and implement if you were an elected board member by by the end of your time on this board, like if you come back one of the last meetings, um, just sit and think >> about if you were in in our shoes, what would you try to advocate for? >> Yeah, I'll get back to you on that. >> I'm interested to see to

033think about. >> We'll think about it. >> There's so many different things we could talk about here. >> Yeah, >> me and Roina will collab. >> Yes, >> talk about it. >> Collaborate. >> Um, other than that, let us know if you have any other questions. >> Any other homework to be assigned to our business? >> Be careful. He's going to come back and give you homework. >> You need a matching set next time. >> You'll have to tell me what that is. >> All right, we're moving on to item number four for a workshop. All right. I invite members of the education foundation forward to present checks to grant recipients. Good >> evening. It's always a pleasure to be here and we have not been here too often, but we're here now. I'm presenting

034three wonderful grants and I'm hoping that you'll get to learn a little bit about them. I'm Julia Beckman. and I have the honor to be the president of the foundation board and Donna Dawson is with me who's our vice president who has a great job of chairing the grants committee and Martha Morillis you you know both these people Martha Marilles is also on that grants committee so they're going to tell you all about them >> all right thanks Julie okay so hi everybody I'm Donna we're going to start off with uh like Julia said we have three uh grant projects that we're going to review today we're going to start off with um with Jeff Grant and Jeff's going to talk about the rainforest. >> Grant for Grant. >> And guess what street runs into

035Donn North? >> Grant. Uh yes. So my kids actually were here multiple months ago um because this was somewhat of their brainchild um as part of science club is to create a rain garden. Um so rain garden if you don't have perspective I have another next slide advances and kind of talks a little bit about I'll let you read but the gist is um because of ecological footprints that a lot of man-made structures like large high schools and sidewalks and driveways and parking lots change routing systems of water. Um it goes into sewer systems faster. It goes into lakes and rivers faster and it doesn't allow nature to clean that water before it gets back to the water table. So the kids thought this would be a fantastic thing for us to do as science

036club uh and try to implement. So I I kind of stood back and said I'll be the bureaucrat and write emails because I'm good at that kind of stuff. Um and I was like ah there's a there's a there's a foundation that could provide us with money that could get us the plants that we need to put into the the rain garden. So they pitched it to Courtney and Michelle and Ken and I forgot Mike Hines who was department chair at the time. um about where it was going to go. They did all the research. They brought in uh I had a connection with the American Geo Science Institute and a couple other groups to come in and teach them some science about some of this. And then they laid it all out. They used

037GPS and figured out where on the property would be a good place. Um we pitched it to the department and to the school. They said this would be a great trial run. And then next slide, >> they did it right. So, right before uh and it you don't see it, but I think the temperature that day was a good 89 in the shade. So, the sweat was definitely pouring off all of us. And if you don't know anything about when buildings put in um in the soil sciences, we call that builder's lom, which is like all the riff raff from putting in schools and stuff. They just kind of bury it under a half inch of soil so that grass grows and that's really bad for percolation of water. So, we had to dig some

038serious holes to put all of these beautiful native plants all purchased through PO, uh, which if you don't know PO, they actually came to our climate of hope as well, which we'll talk about later. Um, but the foundation grant gave us all this fantastic money to buy all those native plants. And next slide. Um, here they are again putting it all in. So, that's, uh, if you don't know perspective of where that picture is taken, that's the administrative lot on the south side of the school. Um, so that's the walkway into one of the uh areas there. And you can't really see it in the picture be where you're at right now, but there's a a sewage cap or a sewage cap, a storm water cap that the water runs in through that location. So,

039we're trying to capture all that with the native plant and get it down into the water table instead of going into the actual sewer system. So, next slide. Is it working? I don't know. Right. Well, like that's that's science for you, right? It takes years for these plants to grow and mature, but the nice thing is with buying plants that are full plugs, they've already had two or three years of nutri nurturing in the ground, so you have real good root stock. So hopefully this spring, we'll start seeing some growth and maybe even some flowers. We picked plants that would be applicable to our school, so a lot of purples and whites and yellows. Um so yeah, so that's that's the gist. Um, and if you don't like it, you can leave >> for only

040$600. >> Yeah. For $600. It >> was a bargain, wasn't it? >> Yeah. So, and we even have some leftovers that we're going to put in this spring as well. So, yeah, they're all in dormcancy right now in the classroom. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you for doing it. >> Great idea. >> Questionable idea. A >> question for you. >> How far down is the water table? >> Uh, it depends on where you're at elevation wise. So that place that we're at right now, um, we GPSed and the slope of the land is just enough to run everything from sidewalks and that parking lot towards that drainage gap. Um, I don't know. So I I could easily figure this out, but I just have my computer in front of me how far down

041the water table is, but if you think about it, most of the water from the Downers Grove area is going to feed into the DuPage River. >> So >> that was notoriously dirty like 30, 40 years ago. Yeah, >> it's much cleaner now. We actually have life in those rivers now. I mean, for I'm serious, like 40, 50 years ago. I literally just talked with my Environ group uh about two weeks ago with the U ofi professor that said Dwage River is one of the worst in the state and now we're to the point where it's a lot cleaner. We have fish in there. He said he doesn't see a lot of the native uh oysters and like muscles and you know the I'm just trying to give you like exemplar species um in those

042rivers yet >> but there's hope right so doing things like this decrease ecological footprint to to feed those rivers with clean water so >> cool great >> sorry sciencing you any other >> uh what types of plants are you putting in >> yeah so we put in cone flour so purple >> we put in butterfly milkweed So, even though it says we don't freak, right, they're it's a it's a native plant that is good foraging for monarch butterflies and a lot of other butterflies. And they're not a super tall one like the common milkweed gets, you know, five, six feet tall. These are more bush type of species. What else do we put in? Um, leatric, which is blazing star. Um, and then we did a sedge as well. So, we had like a grassesque

043species in there. So, a nice mix of purple and orange and greens. So, >> yeah. >> So, again, you said you'll see some hopefully some growth in the spring. >> We definitely see growth. >> We better see growth. >> Hopefully, we'll see flowering this spring. Yeah, we'll see. Um, it takes sometimes species take three, four years before they actually produce flowers. So, we're hopeful that we'll start seeing some SE effects from that. Are there any other spots at Dinos North or South that you guys see in the future where you can see each other said that Ryan? >> So, if this goes really well, if you know Downs Grove North, uh the whole fronts, so off Main Street, um the sidewalk that's there pitches directly at the school and there's three or four more water

044caps. >> Might be really cool to have the whole front of the building look native. Just saying. >> The colors too. >> Set you up. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. With with >> new colors. Fantastic. So, >> do you know of any other districts or buildings in schools in the area that are doing similar >> project? Yeah, the conservation foundation, they're actually at climate of hope as well. Beth Koo, I talked with her. Jefferson did something across the front of I'm trying to think directionality here. South side of their building along that long um parking lot area. They did a nice strip of I would say three foot wide all the way down the walkway the sidewalk there. Uh and the same intent there is to just try to infiltrate because native plants have deeper roots

045than just top soil blueg grass. So that makes the soil a lot better and allows the water to go down faster. So I think Jefferson for sure um golly you're putting me on the spot. I can't remember all the ones that she had mentioned but there's several in the area and their whole goal is confer they have two programs. conservation at home, conservation at school. So, we are officially a conservation at school school. Um, and we have a signage that is out front for the the rain garden as well. So, >> great. >> Thank you. Awesome. >> Thank you. >> I'll be back up in a second. >> She's my former teacher. >> He was my student at one time. >> He graduated last year. Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you all. I really appreciate

046it. >> Of course. >> All right, let's keep moving. That sounds so exciting right now. I bet all of us are going to be in our cars next couple days around the world for that. I know I will. So, okay, so up next, last week at both Downers North and South, they brought in a wonderful author. I actually I had an opportunity to sit and uh participate and have lunch with this wonderful author. And so we have Kim Hokowski and Allison Baba who will share how well that event went. >> Hello everyone. Could you go to the next slide? Thank you. Um so yes, so last week, last Monday and Tuesday, we had the pleasure of having Lamar Giles speak to students at both of our schools. Thank you so much to the foundation for

047helping us cover that cost. Lamar Giles is a young adult and middle school author. He has written 13 books. He's been on the Lincoln Award, which if you're familiar with that, um is an Illinois librarian, English teacher, and studentbased award. Um and so his book, his most recent book, The Getaway, or his second most recent book, The Getaway, was on there two years ago. Um and he is just an author that is really popular. Students really enjoy him. So, we were able to bring him in. He spoke about the writing process. He talked about inspiration. Um how he comes up with his ideas. Um he started off his presentation talking about kind of how many of his young adult books are horror and thriller. Um so he talked about um when he first got invol

048really kind of learned to appreciate control fear is a good way to write a book. Um very believe it or not very funny story behind that. Uh and so we were able to bring him in last week and um lots of students were able to see him. So if you could switch to the next slide. Thank you. So this is um what what happened at Downtown Grove North. We had three class periods. So he spoke during third, fourth, and eighth. It was important for us to have a lunch period in there so that any students who wanted to drop in during lunches could. Um and also if our book club members wanted to drop in, they could during any of those periods. Um it covered 13 classes. There were 322 students present. Um and that

049was over eight teachers. That includes co-teers in some of the classes. Um, so we had a couple pictures. The first picture on the left is during one of the sessions and you can see they all looked like that. They were all quite packed. We had seating for 120 >> in each hour and it was mostly full. Um, in the middle picture, we've been really working to create a strong relationship with Heric Middle School with their library in particular. And so Jeff Burgerer, who's their librarian and one of their English teachers, brought over 28 students, which was wonderful. Um, Mariela Secrets, our book club sponsor. She's already trying to recruit them to be in the book club. Um, so that was really fun to have them during our fourth hour. They just walked over, which was

050a great opportunity. And now we're flipping that on its head and Mariela is going to probably bring a group over to Heric later in the year for an author visit there. Um, on the right hand side, you can see he's talking to a number of students. This was he was signing books. He was talking to students. Um and they were really expressing to him that how much they valued him being there, him in particular, but also just having authors come to visit. Um some of them were getting very sentimental with him. It was actually really amazing to see. This was actually after school for for quite a while. Um and so we we got wonderful feedback from the teachers, wonderful feedback from the students. I mean, if we could have him again, we absolutely would,

051you know, in another four years, but he he was really wonderful. >> And you could go to the next And then the next day he spoke it at South. We also had him speak for three periods. Um he spoke to 17 classes over those periods. 18 different teachers. Um a little over 350 students joined us. Um very own Donna is uh was able to join us for lunch and sit through a couple of his presentations. Um you know the picture that's in the middle with the student. We actually had a class, one of our um one of our teachers who teaches an English class, Patrick Hayes, had his students read um the last last days of summer, which is a book about um if time froze when you take a picture um and how they

052how this group of students tried to preserve like gets get fix everything that was going on. So this student in particular came with his prop of his camera because that kind of froze time in this book. Um and so they had an opportunity, all students had an opportunity to talk to the author after the fact and um have you autographed books. This particular class each had their own copy of the book. So they each got to talk to him um and have him autograph the books after the fact, which was thrilling. Um and we got some feedback from them afterwards. And I think my favorite comment from one of the students was that he was literally the best and kindest author they've ever met. Um and that they were impressed that he inspired so many

053authors as well. Um because he talked about some of the organizations he's involved with. So, um, yeah, it was just a fantastic experience and we are really grateful to the foundation for helping us pay for that. So, thank you. >> Grateful to you putting it together. >> Putting it together. >> Oh, here she comes. >> Question question for you. >> Sorry. >> Are his books Are his books available for purchase at our local bookstores or Barnes & Noble? >> Yes, we actually um partnered with Anderson's. had books on site at both schools and students could purchase those and Anderson's offers discounts too and of course it's taxree. >> Um so students were able to buy books on site and have them signed um and and they can also go into Anderson's. We try to encourage

054students to go to Anderson's um for their reading needs. >> So whenever we can. So that was really they were they're always wonderful to work with. >> That's fantastic. I think, you know, it's so hard to it's so hard for the small um local bookstores to survive >> and our connection with Anderson is really really important. >> Yeah, they do. They do a wonderful job. >> That's great. >> So, it looked like about 600 students. How many of the students had come with knowledge of one of his pieces, one of his books? they they they've read, they came, they kind of had an idea of what to look for. >> We had some teachers, so like for example, um Britney Mitchell's teach uh Britney Mitchell teaches our writing for broadcast class. So she had the

055students have they had questions. So she always has the students do a little pre-ressearch. Some of the students had read our book club. You could pick any of his books for that for that month. Um and then of course Kim said that they had a class. >> Yeah. >> Um read the book. >> And with him, especially one of his books being on the Lincoln Award just a year ago, we had many students that recognized him right away. Um sought out, you know, looked to we had an opportunity to provide some field trip opportunities to students that couldn't come with the class, but really wanted to see. We had a student that really wants to be a writer, so he came and asked if he could come. So we were able to get him a

056field trip for the period to see um the author. So certainly not the majority of them have read his book, but many have. >> So many have. I don't know the percentage though. >> Yeah. Okay, >> that's awesome. >> I will say um usually when we do author visits, it's like another author. >> I was there >> and I I got to see this author and he didn't just talk about like the book, he talked about the book writing process and being an author as a career choice and um how that career is changing and he just talked about the creation process and how important it is to be creative um and not write for somebody else, write for yourself. And I thought that was really cool. So that's a great opportunity >> and he

057did a good job too of you know he left a lot of time at the end 15 to 20 minutes at the end for questions and usually they're like you know that's gonna >> how's that going to go but he had these amazing sent like question starters and one of them was he stepped on Beyonce's foot >> and it like just got the kids rolling. >> Yeah, usually it's awkward at the end. >> Yeah, it was not awkward at all. Like the bell rang and students after 8th hour were still just watching and they weren't moving. Um, >> so he was he was wonderful. >> Great. Are there plans for other authors in the future? >> We like to ask the author that's there who they recommend because >> when we've kind of always done

058that which like who do you recommend and he said something like um my friend Tiffany and we were like are you talking about Tiffany Jackson? Um so for us it was like you know these are like stars to us. These this is our jam. So, um, and then there's another local author that Kim and I have talked about that focuses on non-fiction because we really try to mix it up. >> She's from Wheaten. >> Yeah, I think Candace Candace Fleming. >> Candace Fleming. >> She writes young adult middle school and elementary school non-fiction. So, she's on our list. >> She's on our list. >> Her newest book is also on the link in the newly released link in the list. So, yeah. So, we have we have a couple that we're we always have in

059the background. >> We try to hook them before they the price goes up. That's amazing. >> It's fantastic. >> I know. in my heart. >> I got a smile. >> Put on my reading glasses and be like, >> "All right, >> she have one left and Alison's gonna stay up here." >> Not finished with me yet. >> No, we're not finished with her yet. She's got more to share. >> And this one's pretty cool. I can't wait to hear more about it, too. her MetaQuest. >> Okay. So, we since I started at um North nine years ago, we always had virtual reality, but those devices became they were becoming obsolete in that it was really tech was working our our school, you know, our building tech is amazing and it was becoming very difficult for

060them to work with those because they weren't connecting to I mean Hank could speak to this. They weren't connecting to the network really well. The guest network was getting in the way. Um, so we did a lot of research to to determine what we wanted next. Um, because virtual reality helps us to work with a lot of departments. You know, a lot of people think that, you know, libraries only work with English departments, which is not the case at Downers North and South, but this helps us to work in areas outside of research. So, um, we did research and we found these. We started looking into a metaquest, but they're very expensive. And so we wanted to purchase six of them and also the learning management system because the learning management system helps us to

061push out content all at once. So if we are going from a science class quickly to a CTE classroom to a social studies classroom, we could do that in a short amount of time because everything can be pushed out quickly. So it was an extra fee. uh we purchased them through CDW and this allows us to present AI generated videos or actual videos in 3D. So when you have the headset on and you look around I mean I'm sure you've seen commercials you look around they they it's as if they're in the space right and then in the middle you see that's what the device looks like. So this what I >> That's right. Um so we partnered with our tech team CDW and then we've already collaborated with teachers on this. So could you

062go back really quickly? So the next three slides are what very short clips of what they might see. The first one is going to be if you were studying cells in a biology class which already discussed with the science department chair over there. Um Marielle is one of our librarians. The second one it we've already had virtual reality visits to ancient ruins in social studies courses. So this would be that's what the next one is. And then the third one is as if someone was um fixing an engine. So that's something that we could work in multiple STEM areas, right? Science, CT. >> Um so those are the three that you'll see first. So if you could now just go through the next three. >> You're going to be my clicker on our computer. >>

063I need you to click that. >> I don't think it's right here. >> Yeah. to get it going. Nope. Go back with the mouse if you could click the little play button. >> So that would be what they would see if they were in >> Oh my god. >> You know, in someone's bloodstream. Ryan could explain that more than I better than I could. So, >> right. Arrow to the next one. >> Let's hit the arrow button. Did that work? Oh, there you go. >> Oh my god. >> So, these are some of the ancient ruins. We visited China and Africa and multiple different places in social studies classes. >> There we are. >> And this is the engine. >> Wow. >> My goodness. >> So, we're building off of the virtual reality lessons that

064we've already taught. Um, we've already visited the ancient ruins. We've already ridden roller coasters, visited the cherry blossoms and different classes. Um, and we're trying to build that um, up and Marielle is doing a great job of creating those collaborative relationships with teachers. Um, in order to do that, we already celebrated Dia de los Muertos and we have a big event in the library every year for that and there's multiple stations and one of those stations is virtual reality and this year we use the metaquests. And so the next slide is another video. Sorry. Um of Mariela Seeker working with a small group of students. >> Oh yeah. >> And they are visiting an ofrena and they are also sitting in a cultural uh dinner >> that they that they are studying um through the

065culture. >> So our next step is I also just applied for a grant through Rails which is the reaching across Illinois library system. That is a a a big grant that caps out at $5,000 because six, you know, gives us a small group, but if we could get 16, then it allows us to work with half the class and have a couple extras. >> Um, so that it gives teachers some flexibility in in how they're using the metaquests in class and, you know, also have students doing other things besides the metaquest that day. >> Yeah. Can you use these as a substitute for dissections? >> You can watch a dissection on them. Yes. So, I know that the science department does a great job. They actually have a live dissection which they sometimes host in

066the library have to look away from every year, >> right? But some students are are squeamish about the actual dissections. Yeah, >> you could anything that you could do live, we could find. So, >> MetaQuest actually has their own library content library which is free because we have a learn learning management system. Um, but we can also find 360 videos on YouTube like we used to do. So, it's really anything. It's like when one of the INLD teachers in the INLD area was like, "We want the students to visit cherry cherry blossoms." I was like, "Oh, okay." And I found some some videos and we visited the cherry blossoms in DC. >> So, it's really anything you can do. >> Yeah. >> Is there a specific group of students that has access to this or

067is it all levels and all grades? >> All levels, all grades. And in the grant that I applied for for through Rails, I asked for a cart because I'll use science as an example again. >> Sometimes when we're doing when we're working with them, they want to be in their labs. So we don't want them to have to be stuck in the devices to be stuck in the library. So the part of that grant was to ask for one of the carts so that we can wheel it down. And then sometimes you have students who they it's difficult for them to access the library. So, it's important for us to make sure that they are they are in the areas that they need to be in so that they can learn best. So, it's important

068for us to go to them. So, we will find another way to travel with them if I don't get that grant. Um, but you know, we just want to make sure that they stay safe so that they don't break. >> Anything else? >> That was great. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you guys for all your support. >> I think they cut you on. >> I know this was all exciting. One thing that I would like to leave with you is today we just opened up our spring grants and they will run through the end of April. So, you know what that means? We'll be back. >> Thanks again. >> Thank you. >> I also want to give a quick thank you to the two board of education members who come and act

069as the leaison of April and Katie. We were very happy to welcome Katie back, but we're very, very grateful because I know your lives are very busy. And thank you to you all for giving us the time. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right, I'm going to invite Courtney back up. >> We're going to continue this train rolling on innovative staff this evening. >> And uh the best part is we get more science. So, um I am really really thrilled to introduce the three people sitting behind me um who represent our science department. Um for a little context, if you don't know, last Friday was one of our professional development days and it's called the countywide institute day. And most of the schools in DuPage County are all all have no students because all

070of the teachers in our whole entire county get to participate, excuse me, in professional development activities across all of the schools. And we at North were really really lucky to host our second annual climate of hope which is put on by these three wonderful people who I'd like to come up um have come up right now. We first have again Mr. Jeff Grant, one of our science teachers. We have Mr. Brian Glasby who is our science department chair and the woman who holds it all together um and puts the glue all together for Climate of Hope is Miss Christine Christensen. And so, um, we had over 500 science educators in our building, uh, at North High School on Friday, and it was really, really exciting to see all of the science that was happening. So,

071I'm going to turn it over to these guys, and they're going to talk a little bit about the day. So, >> we got the purple memo, too. Now, we're in purple. So, uh, good to Oh, this wasn't on. Uh, so it's good to see you all. Uh we were lucky enough to close out our week uh with wonderful educators and students as well for these two events. Climate Hope was the Friday and then Thursday we're going to wrap up and go backwards and talk about project 2100 which was our first studentled conference as well at Morton Arburedum. And our theme for the uh climate of hope um conference is community conservation and climate. And all of these logos that you see on this presentation are developed by none other than our students. So they're wonderfully

072done. You can go to the next one. >> So a little bit about the hope conference. Um it bridges educators together and gives them perspective. you know, often we work in our silos, we work in our departments, we work in our districts and it's really that we I always look forward to the institute day uh because it's our opportunity to branch out with other educators >> and oftent times institute day will provide professional development instructionally but this is something none other and that we allow scientists from all around the country and beyond u to come to us to share their real practices is um usually as you can see on there climatology is really the theme but we had shark geneticist. >> Yep. >> Uh what are some other roles that we had? >> We

073had a amphibian researcher, we had um arborists, we had ice drill scientists, we had >> snow physicist. >> Yes, we had physicists. Um I'm trying to think. We had a coral researcher. So the whole goal is like boots on the ground scientists talking to science teachers so that they can learn the science more. But also we had educational institutions like National Center for Science Education and Illinois Science Teachers like all these great groups that create lessons to help teachers so that and we sent out a survey literally this morning and the feedback coming back is fantastic. Shocker. Um they they're all saying like it was one of the best institute days that they went to. Sorry, we're and they walked away with not only knowledge about these topics, but also things that like some of

074them are said, I I'm going to put them into play this week. They're already prepackaged and ready to go. And so that's kind of the goal of the conference is to provide the science knowledge that a lot of teachers need um and that they sometimes don't have enough time to read about on their own and give them that day to to really nerd it out, right? Like that's the whole goal is to be nerds for the whole day. So >> and the picture on the left again, student volunteers. >> Yep. Their day off. They chose to come to us >> and network with professionals. >> Absolutely incredible bunch. Next one. >> So, we had some keynote speakers. If you go, there they are. So, there's three of them. We have Dr. Eric Austerberg on the

075left. Uh, he's an associate professor at Dartmouth University. We also have Dr. K. So, we had a family team to finish off in the auditorium as a double keynote. Dr. Karen and Dr. Richard Ally. Dr. Karen Alli is University of Manitoba. That's where she works. As well as Dr. Richard Ally at Penn State University. So these are real scientists like a lot of our other scientists that are leading these breakout sessions, but these three did full keynotes in the auditorium for all of us 500 together. And it was just fascinating to see what they had to share in terms of we have hope. We have hope in our climate. And that was really the the theme of their presentations of their keynotes. >> And they care so much just like everybody else at the conference.

076They do all this on their own dime. So we don't have a budget. They just all the people that presented, all the keynote speakers, they did this because they care. And just so you know, Dr. Richard Ali is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, too. So, >> they just they and they they said, "This is amazing. We need to start doing this in more places for other teachers." So, >> it's also because of this guy. >> It's because of him. >> So, these are just some pictures. You can see breakouts. We had three different sessions. We had feedback of teachers that said, "Gosh, I don't know what to choose. It's a great problem to have. I could not pick because I wanted to go to all." And it was a logistical nightmare because I wanted to go

077to every single session. Uh the rooms were full so you can see some of the classrooms. We had a banner of climate of hope that every participant we really wanted to sign. We'd love to get that on the wall somewhere just to capture that that energy, that hype that we had uh for our climate. And then you can see that is Mike Hind showing the ice core to the student volunteers. Whenever there's an educational opportunity, we will make it uh for our next generation. >> And if you don't know those ice scores, by the way, they're from either Greenland or Antarctica. And the Antarctica when we got donated this year was a 10,000y old ice core. >> Talk about cool, huh? >> It's an ice core. We got it. We got it. >> All right.

078Okay. Well, pause for dramatic effects, you know. >> We'll laugh later. >> If you have to explain it. >> Yeah. >> And it's a true dad fight. >> So, this is a highlight of Thursday. >> Yes. >> Uh, so at Mor Arburedum, we hosted 64 students from 20 high schools and one of those was actually a school from Sacramento, California. >> Yeah. A teacher brought two students and another chaperon along with >> and it was absolutely wonderful impact. You can see they there are some videos. >> Sorry you might have to click two more times doing a wonderful job. >> This is you can see they are actually rigging >> an unsuccessful attempt which it's science right experiments are going to fail. And you can click on this one and you'll see another opportunity and

079that was successful. And what they're doing is that uh we had Alden, our snow physicist, talk to the students and did a little uh learning up front of how we actually extract the ice core from the ground. And then we turn it over to the students with a little bit of direction for them to design with Tootsie Rolls. Very hard Tootsie Rolls or they have to soften uh and the wood sticks that you see there. and they were able to rig a device between two tables to try to bring up an ice core just like in real life. >> And it was really cool to see them struggle, right? Like that that is learning and to them to collaborate and work together and then the joy around, hey, we actually got it. And there was

080a challenge that they actually then had to roll it on the table in order to bring it to let's say wherever their final destination of the ice core was. So really neat event. You can see Dr. Richard Alli, our keynote, some of these scientists dedicated not only one day but two days with us and we're just forever grateful for their time. And then you can see the D99 family. If you go back one more, that one picture right there, that is me with all of our students that attended this uh conference. So we had 13 students north and south from of the 64 that represented district 99. Y. >> Oh, and it should be noted that the Morton Arburedum donated everything for us, the space, all the stuff. Um, the only thing we had to

081get was the lunches for the kids. So, um, fantastic. Everybody's in on it, right? This is important stuff. So, community is well aware of it and they're pitching in too. So, it's fantastic. >> We mentioned a few, but just thank you to the community. Honestly, >> these are all the people that showed up to Climate of Hope, right? So, they all brought presenters. They all helped give away things to all our attendees. Um, yeah, it just shows it's important, right? And, uh, everybody's in on it. So, it was great. A lot of networking. I think everybody walked away with something, whether it be a bad joke or at least some science knowledge, right? >> So, anyhow, questions at all or >> Yeah, the the u the passion that you guys have towards science is contagious.

082>> Thank you. And I really don't even like science, >> but I really do now. I mean, it's really contagious. And our students are so blessed to have you guys as educators teaching them every day. I mean, it's really fantastic what you you guys are doing. So, keep up the great work. >> Thanks. >> Yeah. >> Well, we're going to do all this again sometime in the future, right? >> Yeah. >> So, let's invite you guys on over. If you want to come conference or or climate of hope, we'd love to have you. >> And it really says a lot that the students come out >> on their day off >> to to participate. >> Absolutely. >> I think you're contributing to the reputation of our district as well. >> Yeah. I mean, the the

083fact that you're collaborating with all of these fantastic organizations, bringing in teachers from all over the region and the country. >> Um, we we're all very proud of you in that regard >> and I've attended one of these and found it extremely interesting myself. >> Yeah. >> So, thank you. Thank you so much. You guys all deserve a great pat on the back as you >> and a nap. >> Really? Yeah. And a nap for sure. One of the things that we hold really dear to our hearts here in this district is our professional development. And I think it just goes a long way to see this collaboration um between everybody in the science department. Christine is working with these guys all the time to make sure that all of the details are set and

084it was just a really beautiful day. So, thank you for letting us highlight it tonight. >> Well, speaking of the community, so we are all I think we're all wearing these bracelets still. >> So, these are show your stripes and we put these together. Well, you put a lot, but our It's just It takes a village truly. So, a lot of our students crafted these. >> It's 159 in 8 days. >> Wow. Yeah. >> Individual beads. These are not random. These are all aligned with global temperature >> days >> back to 1880. Wow. >> We have a couple extras. We can get you board members. So, I mean, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I should have brought props, but I didn't. I'm sorry. But it's just it's amazing to see the science department just sit down.

085We have a table right there and on their lunch on their plan and the last two weeks that our us you know our department were just building this students >> buttons during student choice >> bracelets. We had our T99 making all the stickers for the event. We should highlight that as well. That was fantastic. 900 stickers T99 put together for us. The kids designed some of the You saw some of the logos there. The our students designed them. T99 produced them and then we just gave them out like they were candy. So they're all over water bottles and computers everywhere now. So it's fantastic. So >> well if you can get bracelets for us, we will definitely wear them very proudly. >> Very proudly. >> I got it. I got >> Thank you so much.

086So, to continue uh with the enthusiasm in the room, um I get to introduce Miss Jennifer Jordan. And like you heard Courtney say, one of the things that we're really proud of is our commitment to professional development for our teachers at DGS two weeks ago, maybe three. Um, we did a showcase of kind of our teacher rock stars to present the amazing work they're doing to their peers. It was very very wellreceived by our teachers. Every presenter was glowing and enthusiastic. And for us who lead that, it was some of the most positive feedback we've received from our teachers. And of that, Miss Jordan's presentation emerged as one of the most meaningful and impactful. So, we get to have her highlight that with you tonight. So, here's Miss Jordan. Hi everyone. So yes, I'm Jennifer

087Jordan from Downers Grove South and I am in the career and technical education department. And this past fall I had the opportunity to get my certification in work-based learning coordination. Um ISBY actually offered it to free for student or for teachers because they recognized how important work-based learning is. And I think one of the biggest takeaways I had from the course was work-based learning doesn't just have to happen in CT. And I think you saw it a lot tonight in the presentations. It can happen everywhere. And I think that's something as a district we can really lean into and try to strengthen all our academic pathways with this kind of learning. Uh so what is work-based learning? Uh so we all kind of know the traditional sense of work-based learning of you know going to

088a job site, TCD, leaving school early uh to go to work, having an internship. But I want to highlight what we can do within our classrooms right now because we know for all of our students the ability to go to a job after school or to have half your day you're leaving to go TCD is not always possible. So what can we do right now in every class every day to give all students this experience and that goes with studentled enterprises. So, our jewelry area is already doing this at Downer's Grow Stiles, fixing jewelry for other people, team- based challenges, incorporating mentors into classes, uh, capstone projects with industry partners. So, anytime we can think about our curriculum of how we can bring others in from the community, again, we have a great community here

089that wants to help. So, we as teachers can start reaching out and thinking where can we embed those opportunities into our classes. So, it's not just in CTE. we really want to branch it out. And on the next slide here, uh I just want to point out the why. So this builds transferable skills. So work-based learning benefits everybody, right? Our high school students right now and this generation, they're not content with the question, what do I want my job to be after high school? Right? They want, what is my life going to look like after high school? And by having workplace learning embedded, we can start connecting to students interests and what they truly care about. And this is what employers want too. So it's a double-edged uh meaning right here. So employers want that

090authentic exposure and so do our students. And then I think one of the biggest things I feel passionate about personally about work-based learning is it promotes equity and access at our schools. So for my PPL, I also did a demographic study on CTE and where uh we're maybe losing students or we don't have students in certain areas. And what I found was our lowincome students are the lowest uh enrollment in CTE overall as a group compared to their demographic at our school. And so I think if we're limiting work-based learning only to CTE, we're missing that big segment of students that could really benefit from this uh type of work. uh and so they're less likely to have these work-based learning experiences. So we want to make sure that it's happening in math, it's happening

091in English so that they're not losing out. And again, a lot of these are cost-saving things like dual credit, industry level credentials, like those are things students and families want. And it complements college or career, right? It's not one or the other. Like everybody needs exposure to these things. And it helps those students kind of hone in on what their career goals are and what's going to work for them. And studies al I love statistics, but studies also show that students who participate in work-based learning in high school do better in post-secary education. >> And so I think on the last slide here, what this really talks about, if you want to just flip to the next one, thank you. Is answers the questions for students, why does this matter, right? like why am I

092sitting here in this classroom? And I think this is something we're always trying to think about, but I think now with all the research we've seen on workbased learning, we can really think about how we can truly with fidelity implement this. Uh I talked in the professional development with teachers in different departments and brainstorming ways like, hey, what could this look like in your classroom? And some of the thoughts we had were, you know, in a math class working with chart wheels, a business right inside our school. Hey, can we figure out what products students are buying the most? How can we promote this uh product? Like what are the statistics? And you could even bring in PE or a health class of how can we make sure kids are making healthy choices in the

093cafeteria. Uh you can like our jewelry classes fixing things uh for students. I know my fashion class, we have the care closet at Downer Grove South. So my fashion merchandising students and also the architecture students are working to develop a plan to better that and then it'll be evaluated by people that are in that industry. So the anytime you can bring in these outside sources is really going to help our students. And so I think it was really nice to have this professional dialogue with my colleagues during this time so that we could think about, hey, wait, I could just tweak this one project I'm already doing and make it work-based learning. Uh, so could go on about work-based learning forever, but do you all have any questions I can answer? I think work-based learning

094is really critical uh for our students to be prepared for their post high school pursuits and the more you can integrate it into all the different classes the better they will be prepared for life after high school. So what you're doing is absolutely fantastic. Keep up the great work. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Great. >> The entire thing I think is fantastic. um the ability to learn those skills early and implement them into the curriculum and take those on to the rest of their lives like that is super important and it sets up like you said like it gives them a leg up in those post-secary spaces and professional spaces and I think anything to give the opportunity our students to have that like little extra jump especially the low-inccome students too that's incredible

095so thank you so much for taking the initiative to do this >> yeah and I think too it's important if we're scaling it out beyond on CTE is like how can we start it freshman year? What does it look like freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, senior year? So we're not just leaving it to senior year and then it's like, oh man, like what am I doing with my life? And so we want to make sure students are exposed throughout their high school um preparation. >> Yeah, I heard you mentioned dual credit, too. Right now I'm a senior. I've taken a bunch of CT classes, but um and I've gotten the opportunity to take dual enrollment classes and dual credit classes. Um, and I applied to college this year and the college that I committed

096to, they took all of the credits that I took, whether that was financial accounting and entrepreneurship, like just the work-based learning, the things that I've learned. And even connected, I know you would know what DECA is, like even the things I've connected, like it's just been such a great learning opportunity for me. And I just would recommend every single student to go through some type of CTE course. Saved me money, but it also it's it's right, it's a graduation requirement. >> It is only half a credit graduation requirement. So, we could maybe even up that up a little >> even more. Yeah. >> All right. Thank you everyone. >> One thing I just want to add that like Jenny's question at the end, why does this matter? And just remember, she presented to our whole

097staff. And so, like I said, everyone's presentation was good. A lot of people were highlighting things they're doing and then their colleagues got to connect and feel proud to know. But Jenny's was different because colleagues walked away being like, "Yes, I even if I'm not in CTE, I can incorporate this easily in my curriculum." And I think teachers felt super motivated by Jenny's presentation to actually fairly seamlessly pull some of these things into their curriculum with some extra thought and some extra intentionality, not necessarily going out and do something radically different. And so it was just such a nice connection that really spread to our whole staff very quickly. >> That's what I was going to ask because when you have PD there's so many opportunities. So did you walk away with any different departments

098math science that that you heard connections >> that you hadn't thought about yourself or that they came to you and said, "Oh my gosh, I'm now going to take it and and roll with it in my own, you know, in my own way." >> Yes. Yeah. So, we I actually um oh, sorry. I uh spoke with science and we talked about the biomed science class and how right now it is only dual credit for a very small college and how we can change that and then also how they can bring in more industry professionals into that class. Uh I also talked to a PE teacher where we talked about how you could partner with local elementary school students because, you know, they make fitness plans and things like that. Well, how about make a fitness

099plan for a junior high student, you know, to work with them together. And again, we have good relationships with our middle schools. Uh, a world language teacher talked about, hey, maybe the signage in our school, we can work to help translate that into other languages for our bilingual students. >> Oh, cool. >> Thank you. >> Well, thank you everyone. >> Thanks very much. >> Thank you. All right. So, last but not least, I have um Mercedes and Brian. They are support staff members in our PATH program. So, I know the board is familiar with PATH, very supportive of PATH. I also know that it's been a board goal to continue making sure that our interventions are top-notch. So, I'm going to turn the floor over to them, but before I do, um one thing I

100just wanted to share is our students and path um and our ISI program are often there because they've made a bad choice somewhere along the way. and then it's our job to like steer them in the right direction. And the whole goal in that is to ensure that every student can participate in all the amazing things you've heard here tonight. So our students who started kicking off about the emerging clubs, everything you heard them talk about with science and the grants, we want every student to be able to take advantage of these opportunities. and these two um make sure that every student will have the chance to do that even when they might make a bad choice along the way. So, I'm going to turn it over to them. >> Thank you. >> I probably

101don't need a microphone. My voice >> very well. Oh, okay. Gotcha. All right. Uh hello. My name is Brian Flood. I'm a uh inschool intervention supervisor here uh at Downer's Grove South. A little bit about me is uh I'm a career changer into education. So, aspiring educator. I was a property manager for highrises and uh and the skyline of Chicago and hotels for about 25 years and here I am now. Also, I want to make note I'm also a uh one of the assistant varsity wrestling coaches and I just wanted to give our boys props. We did send three uh young men to state just a couple. >> Congratulations. Nice. >> That's awesome. >> Hi, my name is Mercedes. Um, yeah, I actually used to work in Woodridge just up the street um at an

102elementary school and I'm wanting to be a social studies teacher. So, I didn't know what cora I wanted to work with and now that I'm at DGS, I just love high schoolers. They're they're pretty funny. >> Uh, just of note also, next time you see me, I'm I'm definitely going to put some uh slides together because we're we appear to be the only ones that did not do that today. That's okay. >> Um, as ISS is supervisors, uh, we oversee the space in schools where, uh, students may be placed for a variety of reasons. These could be attendance issues, uh, behavioral issues. It can be where some of the students can burn off large chunks of their accumulated detentions. Uh, and sometimes it also works as a neutral space for students that may get into

103like a back and forth with the teacher and it gets a little heated or might even get into an altercation with another student. It gives them a good place that they can come uh concentrate on their work and it gives them a nice neutral space uh to cool down. And then as mentioned before, we also uh can assist uh with the path program students. Uh Miss uh Nicole Walls works out of our room. She heads up the path and of course she is running around uh talking to students all the time, always on the move and we're happy to assist her with that while doing our ISI uh duties as well. Um, in the ISI space, we do set the tone and the we do let the students know that they're expected to exhibit the

104following behaviors. They need to put their phone or iPads or any personal electronics that they have on them in the caddy that's located in the corner of the room. Uh, they need to be courteous and quiet, right? Because everybody's in there for different reasons. And there are some students who take advantage of the time and use it to catch up on things that they may be missing or projects that they're working on. Everybody needs to kind of keep to themselves a little bit and we need to respect the the I guess you know peace of the space. Uh that includes no chatting or interrupting. Sometimes we do have some students that love nothing more than to interject themselves into the situation of another student and we're quick to remind them that is not what our

105room is for and we we uh do not encourage that by any means. And they're also expected to remain on task with their homework. Um there it's not a social hour where we're at. It's a time to uh catch up on your work and kind of think about like what maybe got you in there, some of your consequences and uh they are expected to keep working throughout the day and we can monitor that through uh HPARA where we can see their screens and also we like to uh we love the standing desk and we love wheeling the standing desk around and and uh you know going sitting near the students and making sure they're on task. uh in order to give the kids clear expectations of what they're supposed to do, uh we have a

106couple documents that they send them, uh Miss Winter here, uh heads up, uh she oversees the morning detentions, and she also utilizes that time to make sure that all the students have their ISI entry survey. Uh this survey is a pretty simple document, but it collects uh information that the school can use to make decisions about like the path program in ISI going forward, such as like the demographics of our students, where they went to middle school, uh why they're in there, how many times they've been in there, and uh it also gives them like a questionnaire so the kids in their own voice can kind of express why they think that they've been placed in ISI. And this information can be uh collected and collated and used for uh the path program. Also the

107students receive a student task sheet. Uh this is a Google's document that is shared between us the student and their teacher. It can be edited on the fly like you know like a Google document. And it's very nice too because one of the things we hear most often is students do not have anything to do and we can pull it up and be like I shared this with you and your teacher is typing in there right now what you're supposed to do. So it's and also uh some students have utilized it also as a way to communicate back to the teachers like hey I've completed this assignment or I've seen students they'll see their teacher uh is in the shared document and they'll type up a quick question to which the teacher can respond or

108you know sometimes people you know hit the hit the wrong key and it's like the wrong page number and the student can ask to like you know little things like that. Um uh the daily schedule uh we make sure that every all the students know the daily schedule, right? So when we go into the room, we make sure on the whiteboard every day the date is written what time we are going to lunch. Uh for lunch, our students are not allowed to uh go out into the commons area or the stable and collect their lunch. We will collect it for them. They receive a menu sheet that's handed back to us and then we'll go uh retrieve their lunch for them. and also uh what time we are going for our PE. PE is essentially

109like for all intents and purposes, it serves two purposes. One, it kind of gives them a break from the room because let's face it, we're in our room for eight hours. Anybody gets fidgety, we do. And it allows them to get up and move, and that is a time where we can relax a little bit and like let them talk with some of their peers because, you know, they're just dying to chat with each other. Uh, and also it allows students who have PE for that day to earn their PE credits uh by doing the treadmill at a certain speed for 30 minutes. So that way they're not losing PE credits um while they're in our room. Uh the schedule can change uh depending if there's like an assembly going on or if we have

110a truncated day. Um, but it's important to us that we make sure that the students know exactly what they're doing uh and what is expected of them for that day and their schedule because that's only fair. >> Yeah. And you know, sometimes we do have students who do come in and it takes them a minute. They're not always happy and you know, they made a choice and unfortunately, you know, natural consequences. Um, so if a student were to be misbehave, first and foremost before when we all come in, they sit down, the expect the expectations are laid out right away. I personally do not play about that. Um, because, you know, you want to set you want to set the students up because honestly, we just want them to return back to class to be

111set up for success. Um, so if we do have a student come in and they're, you know, not really having a good day or they're misbehaving, we normally go down through a protocol. But we normally um we will you know ask the student like we will go over to them one- on- one. We try not to put a student on blast but we let them know like we give them certain amount of you know um uh reminders to just say like hey this is the expectation and if normally if they don't want to abide by the rules first their dean or securityurities notified they'll come down they'll grab the student normally we'll you know I had already spoken to their dean um and then sometimes it can a referral can be written but we've I've

112only had to write one in the seven months that we've been in school, which is amazing. Um, so yeah. Um, and then sometimes there's good incentives like before PE, PE is normally towards the end of the day, we'll ask students if they want to go on a walk. We have a long hallway where normally we're in the fine art fine arts hallway, so they don't even have to go out into the commons and see their peers. Bathrooms are right across the hall. We can sit and I can see you go into the stall or like in the bathroom, which is nice. Um, so you know, they can have some type of independency even though they're in our space. Um, and you know, it's just it's just important for us to just have good relationship with

113the students who just made a bad choice. Um, we have students that come back and visit us, which is super interesting, but I like it. We don't normally have them come into the space because, you know, we want the students who are in there not sometimes they don't want people to know that they're in there. So, we'll come outside, we'll say, "Hey, make sure they're not late to their next class." Um, and yeah, it's really pretty much it. Um, it's really nice. I feel like me and Brian, we have different personalities, but we we go together well. And Nicole Wallace, she's amazing with her her path program. She's super organized. She helps us. And kudos to the Deans in Security. I mean, I don't think we would be able to thrive without them because they'll

114be like, "You're calling us again?" I'm like, "Yeah, come on." And so it's it's really nice and yeah that's what we do. >> Great. >> Wow. Any questions? >> I I like to say I know ISI can be very very challenging >> and to do what you do on a daily basis is not easy. So you are definitely to be commended for what you do. But you the two of you are a power couple. You have a powerful presence. And you know it it's conveyed to the students. And for many of these stu we all make mistakes. >> And the beautiful thing about our schools is we're here to pick you up, to support you, to get you back on track. And I can see that every student that comes into ISI with the two

115of you will truly have that opportunity. So they'll see >> they'll see us in the hall and be like, "Hey, Miss Winter. Hey, Mr. Flood." I'm like, "Hey." It's okay. They're not they're not in our rooms, which is it's nice, right? So for them to acknowledge us outside the space, I think that's pretty powerful. >> One thing I didn't share, which I don't think you said either, is that they're both in their first year in the district. >> Like first year, both there's two ISI supervisors. They were both vacant this summer. So, we hired >> and we were pretty intentional about hiring the two of them together >> in our school and we're just super proud of the work they've done and only one year really highlight that >> and it's also just so nice

116to work under your former principal. I mean like when I saw her I was like hey >> but yeah so thank you. >> I'm just cur how many people how many kids do you have to have to tend to? I'm just curious. >> I'm sure it varies, right? But I'm just curious. Yeah. >> Last week, Thursday, we had eight. So, we do we do lunch detentions, period detentions, and all day detentions. So, I think last week on like Friday, Thursday, we had eight kids all day. Today, it was four. And then we had students that come in and out for a lunch detention. Okay. >> So, yeah. >> Yeah. There there's been a few days where we've had to had to tell uh the deans like, "Stop sending people. Yeah. >> Yeah. I was going

117to ask, could do you do you feel adequately supported? Yeah. To make sure you Great. You can you can app Yeah. Okay. Okay. >> Absolutely. So, you know, just like any job, you know, some days it's it's uh really busy and some days, you know, you get the kid that's just there, realizes what they've done, and they'll just hunker down and and then uh some days it could be an all day debate. Yeah, try that. We try to treat everybody with the respect because we understand, you know, they want the respect and they want to be treated as individuals. So, if you come to them respectfully and kind of like talk them through it, a lot of times they're, you know, they're receptive receptive to that. >> I appreciate your your guidance and your mentorship.

118So, thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Yeah, he's awesome. Okay. Okay. This is >> all right. So, thank you to all of our staff that presented this evening. I think it gives the >> board a good cross-section of what's going on with our staff throughout the building. >> I'm going to turn now to Yep. >> Uh turn now to our staffing process for the next uh year. Uh next board meeting is the meeting where we have all of our presentations. Jeff is going to preview that for you in a second. I just want to give an overview of some of the fluctuations that happen yeartoyear that will impact that conversation uh that we will have uh next month or next meeting this later this month. So, uh just some trends that you should

119be aware of as a board. Uh we have decreasing enrollment at South High this year. Um so dropping numbers reduces the number of sections we run and can cut into uh the number of teachers that we need. Uh we also have a decrease in English learners across the district. Um typically we have a large number of newcomers that come in over the course of the year and uh we haven't seen those students arrive yet uh this school year. Um so that's impacting us. Uh, also we have more English learners next year attending TCD, so technology center of DUP page and in work-based learning programs. So, uh, you heard about that today that that's a spot where typically we don't see equity and you can see an increase in that which is a great uh, indicator

120that we are trying to close some of those equity gaps. But that also increases the number of courses that students are taking during the day because those programs will eat up multiple periods or use up multiple periods throughout the day. So that impacts the number of uh sections that they're in otherwise. Um so all of that together combines to a decreased need for the next year in our English learning staff. But that it could be a temporary uh situation, right? Because next year our EL students might not choose to take work-based learning courses or TCD courses or we could have uh political things change that could cause more newcomers uh to arrive or EL students that might not feel safe coming to school decide to come to school. So, we've we are really making sure

121that our staffing that we've been working on uh protects our EL staff so that we have them still involved in maybe other subject areas that they can work in. Um because it's it's a lot easier to find like a an English teacher, math teacher teacher than it is to find an EL teacher, right? So, we don't want to release that staff and then find that in a few months we need them. So, there's been a lot of collaborating with our building administration uh to try to make sure that um through this plan that any of our full-time staff that we aren't uh eliminating through these changes. Uh you'll also see uh Scott and Lisa and the team at T99 uh have a large growth in the number of students, but this is a costneutral change.

122Uh they're working on doing two things. one, we have students that uh might be in an outplaced uh situation at a different school. It's an appropriate placement for them. But now, as they're moving into adulthood and staying with us in our programming, it makes sense to bring them back to the T99 setting for their their 18 to 22 years of age window of time. So, we have a number of students coming back uh to us for that part of their uh learning journey. And then uh we have also extended our program because we do have room because of our construction and and increased space at T99 uh to allow an increased number of outside tuition paying uh students to come to us. So other school districts paying tuition to have their students enrolled with us

123at T99. So that has increased the number of students at T99 next year, uh increasing the amount of need for teaching staff, but because we're either not paying for students to be outplaced or receiving funds for students that are coming to us, we're able to add that 4.4 uh in teaching staff at no additional cost to the district. So, um, overall we have a net decrease in 2.0 FT in cost because of mostly part-time teachers that aren't coming back or reduced further in part-time or retirees that are leaving that we don't need to replace because of declining enrollment, but a total increase in staff overall of 2.4. So, we're up staff, down cost. Uh, which is an interesting situation to be in. I've never never had that before. Um, but it's a good position, uh,

124to be in. So, those are the shifting pieces that are coming at the next board meeting. Uh, we'll have members of the administrative team here that will explain kind of how the actual pieces are moving on the board to make this happen. And, uh, Jeff will walk you through, uh, what those presentations will be when we're back. the next time. >> Yeah. So, just kind of give you a little preview as Hank said about what's coming next month. Um, as you can see, there'll be four sections to this presentation that you'll get next month. Um, the first part is, uh, you'll hear a little bit from me about our FT allocations. So, uh, coming next month, we'll have all those numbers finalized at that point, assuming there aren't any massive shifts and anything that we

125might have to come and ask for additional FTE. Um, but just kind of let you know where those numbers stand. first for sectioning FTE which are the numbers that are tied directly to student uh requests and you know our enrollment numbers and then our non-sectioning FTE which as a reminder are the things that aren't directly tied those numbers. So those are positions like social worker, psychologist, things like that that are supporting students but aren't based on those requests based on the enrollment and what students would like to see themselves taking in the coming year. Um section two you will get to hear from some of our esteemed colleagues uh Gina uh Sakardi of course Jake Giblin Keith Pal will talk to you about the uh impact of the allocations and how things have worked out

126and kind of how a lot of the it's a giant puzzle right putting this all together when you've got the number of students and requests and courses we offer. Um, so they're going to kind of walk through how some of those tough decisions are made and the coursework we offer and things like that and and really hear some cool things about what are some of the things that our students have chosen to explore further that are some of the, you know, department C increases and things like that. Uh, section three, the esteemed Scott Woo Gazer will speak about some of the things going on in special services as Hank just mentioned. uh we have some really uh you know kind of cool things going on with T99 particular where we are going to see an

127increase in our uh enrollment as well as our staff and that's for good reasons. Some of our students are are coming back to us from other places. So uh kind of give you a nice overview on that and some of the other uh things impacting our special services needs for next year. Um and then I return back to kind of close out the show there uh with section four kind of talking about then what is the impact then on the actual people we have this year uh going into next year. um in particular non-tenure staff we may need to release part-time staff we need to release as well as the non-tenured staff that we are planning to renew for the coming year um and you know I'll talk a little bit about this is the

128last year where we have uh the two different types of people earning tenure going next year so a few years back the state changed a lot used to be a four-year path to tenure and then they created a three-year path so this is the last year of the four-year path so that's going to be kind of delineated in the documentation that you'll see in and the explanation that I'll give you to you for next for this coming meeting. Um, but just want you to be aware that's still part of what's going on there. But we'll have all that prepared for you and share that information and be willing to take questions on all those decisions uh next board meeting on the 16th. So, we'll get into the details at our next meeting. But, is there

129any questions generally on the process or any of the information we've shared this evening? All right. Thank you. >> More to come at the next meeting. >> All right. Uh, reception of visitors on the slipstream. No, >> Mike, I think you drew the short straw to read the motion. >> Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's okay. Uh, can I get a motion from the board of education to go into close session under OMA exception number one, personnel? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Chris moved. Uh, done. Second. >> Thank you very much. >> Chris Espininoza. >> Hi, >> Ken Dawson. >> Hi, >> April Fein. >> Hi, >> Michael Riskey. >> I >> and Katie Courtourtney. >> I >> All right. Uh, we're going to be in close session in here and then we will only

130come out of close session to adjourn. I get